This morning he was lying with his huge paws over his nose, the picture of disgust.
"Oh, my beauty, isn't he a love?" Phyllis demanded, forgetting that her voice carried far in its eagerness.
The people around the cage laughed and turned to look at her, but only Tom and Janet felt embarrassed. Phyllis was gazing at Akbar.
"Come over here and talk to me," she urged. "I want you to stand up and roar."
Akbar opened one sleepy eye and then the other, lifted his splendid head and finally after a little more coaxing stood up and stretched.
"You see he does remember me," Phyllis said triumphantly. "I knew he would."
Tom and Janet looked at each other and winked solemnly.
Phyllis refused to leave until, with the aid of the keeper, who seemed to be an old friend of hers, she had made Akbar roar for a large piece of meat.
"That's the way he says please, bless his darling heart," she explained, and the keeper nodded assent.
"The little lady has a great way with him, sir," he said to Tom. "It do seem as though he knows her, for he'll get up and come to the front of his cage when he won't for another living soul, but I do be always saying that lions be rare intelligent beasts."